Deaths and Injuries in Police Custody

[Andrea]

Black security guard wanted to be a cop — then police mistakenly killed him, pastor says

https://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/national/article221526770.html

For Patricia Hill, the pastor of Purposed Hill in Chicago, the police killing of 26-year-old Jemel Roberson is especially hard to understand.

That’s because Roberson, along with being a musician for nearby churches, had dreamed of being a police officer, Hill told WGN-TV. He was working at Manny’s Blue Room, a bar in Robbins, Illinois, as an armed security guard when shots rang out early Sunday morning, she said.

“The very people that he wanted to be family with took his life,” Hill told WGN-TV.

When police arrived to help, they found Roberson armed with a gun and on top of another patron at the bar as he tried to stop the fight until authorities arrived, witness Adam Harris told Fox32.

“The security guard that got killed, he caught somebody and had his knee on him the whole time,” Harris said, according to Fox32. “Just waiting on the police to get there. I guess when the police got there, they probably thought he was one of the bad guys, cause he had his gun on the guy and they shot him.”

But Harris told WGN-TV that “everybody” tried to warn the responding officers that Roberson was a security guard who was trying to subdue a suspect — and not a threat.

“Everybody was screaming out ‘security, he was a security guard,” Harris told the outlet, “and they still did their job and saw a black man with a gun and basically killed him.”

Sophia Ansari, a spokeswoman for the Cook County sheriff’s office, told The Chicago Sun-Times that officers first got word of gunfire at the bar sometime after 4 a.m. on Sunday morning. Four people had been shot inside the bar after an argument had broken out, police say, and a responding officer from the Midlothian Police Department fired at Roberson.

He later died at a nearby hospital, according to CBS Chicago, while the four others are being treated for their injuries.

The Midlothian Police Department told The Chicago Sun-Times in a statement that Illinois State Police are investigating the shooting.

“It is the policy of the Midlothian Police Department to utilize the Illinois State Police Public Integrity Task Force for any officer-involved shootings so we can ensure transparency and maintain public trust,” Midlothian police said, according to the newspaper.

As that investigation continues, some have questions about whether this could have been prevented.

Walter Turner, a pastor at New Spiritual Light Baptist Church in Chicago, said he shared a good relationship with Roberson, who played the organ at his church, according to WLS. He expressed confusion at 26-year-old’s sudden killing.

“How in the world does the security guard get shot by police?” Turner said, according to WLS. “A young man that was literally doing his job and now he’s gone.”

In 2012, 31 percent of the people killed by police officers in the U.S. were black — even though they make up just 13 percent of the overall population, according to an analysis of FBI data from Vox.

[Andrea]

Leaked video: Brusly officer slams middle school student twice; police chief shocked

https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/crime_police/article_61780be0-e867-11e8-a178-472292a1bc31.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twi tter&utm_campaign=user-share

Video footage of a police officer wrestling with a 14-year-old Brusly Middle School student last month has leaked in the midst of a Louisiana State Police investigation into allegations of excessive use of force by that officer and one other, authorities said Wednesday.

The footage shows former Brusly Police Officer Anthony "Kip" Dupre, who at the time had recently become the school resource officer, wrestling with the student and slamming him to the ground twice in the school's office as school staff watched on Oct. 5.

A top police official in Brusly said Dupre later claimed the student had reached for his pistol during the struggle, and the video appears to show Dupre handing his holstered weapon to a school staffer to get it clear of the melee on the floor of the school's administrative office.

WAFB broadcast the surveillance video of the incident Wednesday evening, saying it had been sent to the television station by an anonymous source.

Brusly Police Chief Jonathan Lefeaux said his officers obtained the school office surveillance video Oct. 8 or 9 and, once he saw it, decided to turn it over to Louisiana State Police for a possible investigation.

"Once I seen the video, I said, 'Oh, Lord,' … you know, so that's when I called them to look at it," Lefeaux said.

WAFB reported the State Police investigation is nearing completion, but Lefeaux told The Advocate he could not speak to that. Trooper Bryan Lee, spokesman for State Police Troop A, said the investigation "is still ongoing."

Tony Clayton, chief felony prosecutor for the 18th Judicial District Attorney's Office, said the office plans to bring the incident before a West Baton Rouge Parish grand jury no matter what the State Police probe finds.

"The optics to this one are bad, and I'm going to put it before the public and let them make the determination what to do with it," Clayton said Wednesday night.

Citing anonymous sources, WAFB's report says that the student later admitted to reaching for the officer's gun and that the student had previously fought with other officers on at least two occasions.

Lefeaux told The Advocate he was familiar with prior incidents related to the teen that happened outside the school but didn't share more details.

Lefeaux said Officer Dupre had originally been called to the school office the morning of Oct. 5 while he was heading to work. The youth was reportedly acting out and wanting to go home, Lefeaux said.

WAFB reported the student was trying to make a phone call to be picked up after getting into an argument with the vice principal.

Though the school surveillance camera appears to be mounted near the ceiling, a full view of the scuffle is blocked by the office's front desk. The officer and student appear to be on the ground below the front desk for much of the struggle, with only Dupre's head, shoulders, arms and the youth's feet visible for long stretches in the five-minute video.

In one, roughly 30-second period, however, Dupre can be seen rapidly thrusting his right shoulder and arm up and down apparently toward the youth, as if punching him, while the much larger man had the teen pinned to the ground. Lefeaux estimated Dupre is about 6-feet 2-inches tall and pushing 300 pounds.

Seconds after the right arm jabs, Dupre can be seen passing a gun back behind himself with his right hand to a school employee, who put the gun behind the front desk and away from the fray.

Dupre then appears to speak on his police radio just seconds before getting the teen in a headlock, lifting him upside down so his legs and feet were pointing up in the air and whipping the teen's body back around to the ground.

Dupre and the second officer, Dan Cipriano, who arrived near the end of the struggle, eventually get the student in handcuffs and escort him out of the office.

Dupre, who has about two decades of law enforcement experience, and Cipriano were initially placed on paid leave last month but resigned last week, Lefeaux said.

Lefeaux said he had asked for the officers' resignations because he believes the nature of the incident would have made it hard for them to continue to work in the community. Both men had been with the police department in this West Baton Rouge community for about three years.

Lefeaux added neither officer had his body camera on during the incident for reasons that remain unclear.

The police chief said he didn't know the student's status at the school. Attempts to reach school system officials Wednesday night were unsuccessful.

[Andrea]

KSP trooper accused of punching man remains on duty, but investigation remains hidden

http://www.wdrb.com/story/39491542/ksp-trooper-accused-of-punching-civilian-remains-on-duty-but-details-of-investigation-stay-hidden

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A Kentucky State Police trooper accused of punching road construction workers is still on the job and facing a federal lawsuit, but state police won’t release details about its investigation of the incident.

The workers say Trooper Anthony Harrison drove too fast toward their work zone near Fort Knox late one night in September 2017, adding that he stopped his personal car abruptly, confronted the workers and started arguing.

They also said Harrison lunged for one of their phones and punched one of them. Four of the workers then pinned him on the pavement until police arrived. Much of the incident was caught on cellphone video.

Two of the workers said Harrison was angry about not seeing the crew and their equipment in a closed-off and marked traffic lane. He was off-duty at the time.

Harrison was not charged with a traffic violation or a crime. Instead, after an internal investigation, Harrison was suspended without pay for four days. He’s since transferred to Bowling Green, where he remains a state trooper.

Earlier this month, WDRB News obtained a memo closing the internal investigation that stated charges of “conduct unbecoming” were substantiated.

In spite of a request under the Kentucky Open Records Act from WDRB News last month for the full internal investigation, KSP only provided the disposition of the investigation and no other details.

“Full IA investigations are not available for release per open records,” KSP Spokesman Josh Lawson said. “The complaint and the final disposition is what is provided.”

Other agencies, such as Louisville Metro Police, do provide full investigative files after the disposition of the investigation.

Harrison is also facing a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by three of the workers involved in the incident. The lawsuit alleges that Harrison punched workers multiple times.

An attorney for Harrison could not be reached for comment.

The suit seeks compensatory and punitive damages.

[Andrea]

U.S. Marshals: Cuyahoga County deprives inmates of food, water and Constitutional Rights amid string of seven deaths

https://www.cleveland.com/expo/news/erry-2018/11/9b3d3f3cc89150/us-marshals-cuyahoga-county-de.html

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cuyahoga County fails to provide jail inmates with the basic necessities they to need live. It withholds food and water and doesn’t provide medical and mental health care for inmates, according to a blistering report released Wednesday by the U.S. Marshals.

The report says that the inmates’ constitutional rights are routinely violated.

The report offers a clear picture of a jail rife with deplorable conditions, described by marshals' investigators as inhumane.

The jail investigation comes after the deaths of seven inmates between June 10 and Oct. 2. Cleveland.com learned of the seventh death during some two months of investigating the jail. Three of those inmates committed suicide. Fifty-five other inmates tried to take their own lives within the past year, the marshals found.

The county doesn’t investigate what led to the deaths, the report says.

Among the findings in the 52-page report made public Wednesday:

· Warden Eric Ivey withholds food as punishment and inmates aren’t fed properly.

· Jail staff shut off water to toilets and sinks.

· Pregnant women are forced to sleep on mats on the floor.

· Vermin infest the kitchen.

· Inmates sometimes are denied toilet paper and toothbrushes.

· Officers decked out in paramilitary gear routinely threaten inmates until they fear for their lives, going so far as to call some prisoners snitches in front of other prisoners.

· Medical staff lack proper licenses to provide treatment.

· Inmates with mental illness are denied care, even while they’re in isolation.

· Children are housed with adults.

· Inmates spend long stretches of time locked in their cells, sometimes up to 27 hours at a time, once for 12 days in a row.

The problems are so egregious that the U.S. marshals say the county won’t be able to fix them in a timely manner.

The marshals’ team that performed the review consisted of U.S. marshals from Washington and Cleveland, and FBI agents who investigate civil rights violations and economic fraud.

“They need to have a strong leader to implement all of these changes,” U.S. Marshal Pete Elliott said of the jail. “They need a strong leader with corrections experience to make it up to standard with other jails. I have full confidence in the sheriff that he’s going to find someone who is able to do that.”

Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish asked for the marshals' review. His top jail official, Ken Mills, resigned last week ahead of the release of Wednesday’s report.

In an interview Wednesday, Budish said he based his previous conclusions about jail safety and conditions on state inspections that never raised the breadth of the issues raised after the marshals' investigation. Budish and Sheriff Clifford Pinkney said they were stunned by the marshals' findings.

The report was made public just days after the former jail director Ken Mills tendered his resignation shortly after the U.S. marshals’ presented its preliminary findings to county officials.

Budish said that fixing the problems in the jail is now his top priority, but both he and the sheriff acknowledged that significant changes in leadership at almost every level is needed.

“We need to make sure that our prisoners and our staff is safe in the jail. That is number one,” Budish said.

The list of findings by the marshals is long, and at times, overwhelming. Cleveland.com is providing the full list so that the public, which foots the bills for the jail, can understand the magnitude of the problems.

Former Jail Director Ken Mills, who resigned last week ahead of a scathing U.S. Marshal report about the conditions of the county jail, talks April 5 about the opening of the Bedford Heights Jail. (Cory Shaffer, cleveland.com)
County doesn’t investigate jail deaths

After seven county inmates died this year, Cuyahoga County spokeswoman Mary Louise Madigan said the Sheriff’s Department would investigate what led to the deaths. That never happened, the report says.

The county never performed post-mortem reviews and provided the marshals with insufficient and unclear answers about the recent deaths, including two that remain unexplained today. The county doesn’t review its own policies, procedures or any other possible contributing factors to the deaths.

There are no debriefing reports or mortality reviews, no required documentation, minutes of debriefing, medical summaries, timelines of incarceration, notifications, or autopsy reports in the county’s case files in the medical unit, all in violation of county policy.

The warden kept no files regarding the deaths.

The marshals also found that after every inmate death, someone took the housing unit’s logs, which document routine information, emergencies, and unusual incidents. Someone removed the logs and replaced them with a new one. Those new logs never mentioned why it was necessary to start new logs.

The marshals also had issues uncovering any information about inmates and said their records are stored in various locations throughout the jail, making them difficult to find. The jail has no central place for all inmate records.

Jail officials, along with Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish, far right, at an April 5 ribbon cutting ceremony at the Bedford Heights Jail.
Inmates with medical and mental illness don’t get treated

The jail’s most vulnerable inmates, those with chronic and mental illnesses, are denied consistent and proper treatment. Some nurses and medical staff don’t have the necessary qualifications to administer health care.

Medical files provided to the marshals were surprisingly deficient. Of 10 nurses hired in October, no records were available for review. Of the files provided, four medical staff members had expired professional licenses; one nurse had no license on file; one medical staff member was not certified to perform CPR and two had only partial CPR certifications; a medical technical assistant had no diploma, and a nurse and nurse practitioner had board actions against them with no documentation of their disposition.

Inmates with serious mental-health needs, developmental disabilities, physical impairments, or inmates who are frail or elderly don’t get specialized treatment that takes into account their conditions.

Some inmates with mental illnesses who are placed in isolation don’t receive the mental health care they need, and never receive mental-health treatment for the entire time they’re in isolation. They don’t have access to therapeutic activities either inside their cell or outside their cell.

There’s no documentation of mental-health providers making face-to-face contact with isolated inmates, which violates federal guidelines.

Cleanliness and sanitation in mental-health-care unit is “minimally acceptable.”

Medical staff doesn’t maintain lists of patients who need medical care for chronic health issues. Treatment schedules for those conditions aren’t tracked on a patient-by-patient basis.

There’s a quarterly meeting that identifies problems with health care in the jail, but when a recent meeting found that there were problems administering medicine to inmates, nothing was done about it.

Jail staff “pass” on training about administering medication. The method used to track missed medications involves a numerical code without a description of what that code means.

Medical and mental-health appraisals aren’t conducted within the required 14 days after an inmate’s arrival at the jail. The people that Cleveland police arrest and take to the jail never get an initial medical screening . Medical staff are only made aware of those inmates’ health concerns when they become urgent, such as a “diabetic inmate who has not had his/her insulin for four days, or others who become symptomatic due to not having hypertensive or psychotropic medications.”

Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish speaks before the swearing in of Carole Rendon as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio. Joshua Gunter, Cleveland.com
‘Men in Black’ threaten inmates, use excessive force

The Special Response Team, a specialized unit in the jail decked out in riot gear, frequently threatened, harassed and intimidated inmates, sometimes withholding basic necessities as a way to control inmate behavior.

Marshals interviewed 100 inmates who described this team as the “Men in Black” because of their paramilitary uniforms. The marshals also viewed the response team's body cameras to reach their conclusions.

The marshals described a chilling scene where members of the specialized team escorted inmates to interviews with the U.S marshals’ investigators, and officers threatened and intimidated the prisoners and called them “snitches.”

The intimidation was so pervasive that guards bullied inmates in full view of the marshals' investigators. The behavior concerned investigators, prompting them to request that 10 inmates get released from the jail “for fear of SRT members retaliation, and the legitimate fear of detainee/inmate safety.”

The inmates interviewed described the Men in Black as routinely abusive. They placed inmates in isolation or segregation and refused to give them blankets when they were cold. They withheld hygiene products such as toothpaste and toilet paper, forcing inmates to use old towels, rags or clothing.

In one case, a response team officer told an inmate that toilet paper is only handed out on Wednesdays and handed him a paper towel.

The team used excessive force on inmates during cell extractions.

The officers verbally abused the inmates with explicit language and used “prejudice and unofficial authority to dictate and control” inmates.

Child inmates are held in the same areas as adult inmates while assigned to isolation or segregation. This is in violation of federal jail standards.

While child inmates charged as adults are held in the main county jail, they aren’t supposed to mix in with the general adult jail population for their safety.

Those children don’t receive the extra nutrition or exercise they need for development, and don’t receive programs that are educational or aimed at brain development.

They are subjected to the same extreme lockdowns as adults. That means they often don’t have access to hygiene, recreation and time outside of their cells.

A video that a judge ordered Cuyahoga County to release to cleveland.com shows a jail supervisor taking a naked and mentally ill female inmate to the ground and spraying her face with pepper foam.

[Andrea]

REVEALED: Black military man, 21, shot dead by cops in Alabama mall shooting did NOT fire gun as police reveal the gunman is still loose

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6423265/New-video-shows-Alabama-mall-shooters-body-shot-dead-cops-gunning-children.html

- Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford Jr., the son of a Birmingham cop and a member of the US Army, was shot dead by officers on Thanksgiving Day
- Police were called over reports of an active shooter at the Riverchase Galleria
- A fight broke out and the gunman pulled out a gun and shot an 18-year-old boy twice, also hitting a 12-year-old girl with a stray bullet
- Cops have now confirmed that while Bradford was involved in the altercation, that he was not the gunman
- It's not clear if Bradford was trying to break up the fight or was involved from the beginning
- Authorities are now warning the real shooter is still on the loose
- Officer involved in the fatal shooting has been placed on administrative leave

[Andrea]

4 Police Officers Indicted On Federal Civil Rights Charges For Protest Abuses

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/st-louis-police-charged-stockley-protest-crackdown_us_5c005835e4b0d04f48b2516a?tql

Four St. Louis police officers were indicted on federal civil rights charges Thursday in connection with their actions during an unconstitutional crackdown on a protest last year.

A federal grand jury indicted St. Louis Metropolitan Police officers Dustin Boone, 35, Bailey Colletta, 25, Randy Hays, 31, and Christopher Myers, 27, on felony charges that included deprivation of constitutional rights, conspiracy to obstruct justice, destruction of evidence, and obstruction of justice.

Police officers chanted the streets were “our streets” during the crackdown on protests after a judge found former officer Jason Stockley, who shot and killed Anthony Lamar Smith in 2011, not guilty.

The indictment alleges that at least three of the defendants “expressed disdain for the Stockley protesters and excitement about using unjustified force against them and going undetected while doing so.” It features text messages between three of the defendants in which they joked about using force against protesters demonstrating against the Stockley verdict.

“let’s whoop some ass,” Myers wrote.

“it’s gonna be a lot of fun beating the hell out of these shitheads once the sun goes down and nobody can tell us apart,” wrote Boone. “We really need these fuckers to start acting up so we can have some fun.”

Boone later wrote that it was a “blast beating people that deserve it” and bragged about chanting “OUR STREETS” with other cops after they locked “fools up on prison busses.”

All four defendants were part of the St. Louis Police Department’s Civil Disobedience Team, which led the police response to protests following the verdict against their former colleague.

The victim listed in the indictment is a fellow St. Louis police officer who was acting in an undercover capacity during the protests. The defendants, the indictment says, used unreasonable force against their colleague, a 22-year veteran of the force referred to as “L.H.” The officers allegedly lied about their conduct against the undercover officer, who was wearing a shirt that revealed his waistband so officers would not think he was armed.

Officer Bailey Colletta, who was in a romantic relationship with Officer Randy Hays, allegedly lied to the FBI about what she knew about the takedown of the undercover officer. She claimed he was “brought to the ground very gently” when she knew he was forcefully slammed to the ground.

A federal judge said last year that officers “exercised their discretion in an arbitrary and retaliatory fashion to punish protesters for voicing criticism of police.” Former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Mike Faulk, who was arrested and violently assaulted by police while reporting on the protest, filed a lawsuit over police actions earlier this year.

[Andrea]

Grandma mistakenly booked into all-male Florida jail, staff thought she was transgender

https://www.wfla.com/1632904360

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) - A woman is suing employees of a Florida jail after they allegedly forced her to spend several hours in a cell surrounded by dozens of men, because they suspected she was transgender.

The Miami Herald reports 55-year-old Fior Pichardo de Veloz had come to Miami from the Dominican Republic to witness the birth of her grandchild in 2013, when she was arrested at the airport on an outstanding drug charge. Her arrest report listed her as female and Pichardo de Veloz was booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center and processed as a woman. She was even strip searched.

Due to her history of high blood pressure, Pichardo de Veloz was examined by a nurse as a precaution. The nurse saw she had been taking hormone pills and questioned her about her gender.

Despite Pichardo de Veloz's denial of being a man, the nurse added a note to her file that read: "Transgender, male parts, female tendencies."

The nurse notified a doctor, who reclassified Pichardo de Veloz as male without an examination, according to an appeals court opinion.

Pichardo was transferred to the Metro West Detention Center, an all-male jail, and shared a cell with about 40 men, who jeered at her yelling "Mami! Mami!", according to the newspaper. She was there for 10 hours and said she was terrified to go to the bathroom and "urinated on herself instead."

Jail workers eventually realized their mistake once family members went to the facility where she was originally processed and asked why she was moved.

Pichardo de Veloz was removed from her holding cell and given a new examination. During that exam, Pichardo de Veloz claimed several male officers laughed at her and someone took a photo.

Once her gender was confirmed, she was moved back to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.

Pichardo de Veloz sued the county and jail staff for negligence and "cruel and unusual punishment," but the case was thrown out by a judge who said the jail staffers were protected from a trial for negligence.

In November, the newspaper reports an appeals court ruled the conduct of the nurse and doctor amounts to “deliberate indifference."

"Every reasonable prison officer and medical personnel would have known that wrongfully misclassifying a biological female as a male inmate and placing that female in the male population of a detention facility was unlawful," Judge Frank Hull wrote in an unanimous opinion.